At the end of the day, my day anyway, it is all about people. How do we connect, communicate and collaborate? If that went well I had a great day.
Yesterday I had GCC Zoom sessions trying to realise just that. And it covered the full spectrum between my desperate sense of isolation and this warm flood of belonging.
The exploration of how to be, do and decide together requires all my capacities, my reasoning, feeling, sense making and acting.

The GCC attracts many smart and sensitive people, aware of the great survival challenge cause by the rigged extraction system we live in. That is an immense pool of intelligence, ideas, creativity and experience. Sam Hahn defined one of the downsides as the smart people problem. I labeled the pattern Swarm Stupidity.

 

 

The second session this Friday was an interesting exploration into these dynamics. Watch this video to get a feel for the complexity and the strength of the intention to sort it out and make sense of it leading to the proper decisions and actions.

The definition of a good decision seems to depend on the maturity of the decision makers. This demands adult behaviour.

The first session was more focused on the function and structure of the collective website, https://globalchallengescollaboration.org/
The proposal Joshua offered and created was a central WordPress website and a personal WordPress Blog for every participant. (You currently reading this on mine.)
So like a mothership in cyberspace with many interlinking other virtual vessels.

I like and support this idea. This way the content created stays under my control and does not vanish on the timeline of facebook or another commercial social platform.
I still am on the beginning of the learning curve, but I am motivated to master this.

So following what I learned from William Charlton I share my current concept of the GCC website structure in the form of a proposal.

As Heidi suggested I would like to keep the front landing page short, sweet and simple. Clarity on the (current) purpose of the GCC  and the function of the site are key. And then of course the people with what they bring and desire. As I said, at the end of the day, my day anyway, it is all about people. How do we connect, communicate and collaborate?

So just three entry points. Anyone interested can quickly find more following these links into the site. I would design all other features like active discussions (forums), the archive of discussions (videos) and all other around this main structure.

One exception could be this last suggestion at the end of this Friday session on decision making. A simple link to the donation option is obvious, simple and probably very rewarding:

Your feedback is very welcome in the comment section below. Thank you for your kind attention.

Last year I spent many hours on line. In generative conversations that builded trust and intimacy across cyberspace. Across the pixelbridge as I coined it. I never dared to imagine the unprecedented power of genuine human connections becoming so present and available. Thanks to this new combination of digital technology and more mature social behaviors. Global peer to peer communication and collaboration has become available to anyone with a clear mind and internet access.

Clearing the mind has been my main struggle. So many thoughts, beliefs, convictions and worldviews are thrown at me that I spent most of my time sorting it out.

This is just to get a first overview of the wordpress sites of my GCC buddies

• Heiner Benking https://benkingnews.wordpress.com/
• Deborah M. Wunderman https://sapience207.wordpress.com
• Tammy Lea Meyer tammyleameyer.wordpress.com
• Glenn Gaasland
• Heidi Hörnlein, http://www.the-wisdom-factory.com

• Gertraud Wegst
• Joshua Bridges http://joshuabridge.wordpress.com
• Doug Breitbart
• Flemming Funch
• Aaron Perlmutter,
• Charley Quinton,
• Jaswinder Singh Chaggar, jaswinderchaggar.wordpress.com
• Lucy Rist, http://lucyrist.wordpress.com
• Sam Hahn, http://kfjournal.org/wp/index.php/category/cy/
• Andrew MacDonald andrewcartermacdonald.com
• Alex Reid  https://savenaturefree.wordpress.com/
  and https://multiplyourself.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/dark-ai/

This is how I felt for years. I unconsciously made that feeling visible. Only after painting, I recognised it. That feeling of being totally alien in a naive representation of a safe nourishing world. Crying without a voice. Only then I became aware of it.
Like this cartoon fish finding himself in the wrong story. Wrong place, wrong orientation, wrong direction. Anguish, panic and no voice to utter the sheer terror…

Underneath this I now suspect my deep unmet need to be seen and received in this world. The painting dates 1997, so two decades ago. Only now I become aware of many of my unconscious motives. I want to belong. I need to take my proper place.

This Saturday ‘Barn Raising’ conversation gave me the opportunity to connect with Alex Reid from New Zealand, Heidi Hornlein from Italy, Jonah Lion from the United States. And Esteban Trev from Mexico. That gave me the opportunity to be informed about their websites.
Heidi is hosting The Wisdom Factory. Her blog is http://www.the-wisdom-factory.com
.
Alex Reid is proposing a pattern for networking. His idea is based on propagating doubling contacts. That naturally leads to logarithmic growth. You can find him and his blog at https://www.groupsstartup.net/.  I hope that in the near future we will be all nicely gathering around the mothership, the https://globalchallengescollaboration.org/ That one exists thanks to the initiative by Joshua Bridge, http://joshuabridge.com/
Glenn Gaasland joined later.He currently does not seem to have an active site, but his Youtube Channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyMxOCbplZx2aH2vBZmPcmQ
I am happy with the gradual growth of our virtual interconnectedness.

From the moment I was introduced to the ‘Teal’ movement it was extremely difficult to understand all I did not understand. Everything mentioned was new, still emerging and without clear structure. Basically the language was unable to properly word what happened. The tools to grasp the evolution had to be developed as part of that process.

 

These are my sketchnotes from my first visit to the local Teal Community in Antwerp, in April 2016. (I added colour later to make the flow more readable.) We already were conscious that a clear shared language was key. The notes show at least three mentions of that need. The non-dutch readers can recognise this one:

I heard vague descriptions that have become familiar since then. For instance the most common might be ‘resonate’. It is a nice distinction from the rational ‘understand’ and the emotional ‘like’.

Yet I have seen little orchestrated effort in guiding the mostly spontaneous language evolution. I now think that would be helpful. Especially because this systemic level of development offers the opportunity to avoid the ambiguity that can hamper understanding. (Noting that ambiguity has a value of it’s own).
We need clean clear and plain language to express these more integral ways of being. Words to properly describe the mechanisms of the sovereign accountable commons we want to create. Putting it on the docket.

I have always been both scared and curious. The label Schizoid fits me. But I always struggled to explain how this affects my behaviour. Since I stumbled on this lovely little puppy video on Youtube, thats became a lot easier. It metaphorically shows how I go about daily life. I approach every situation like the puppy approaches the plastic bottle. I love my life, but it is sometimes hard for me to stay present in it. So I constantly zoom in and out of reality…

https://youtu.be/vFdfV0GyqpM?t=41m25s

I have been joining the conversations in the Global Challenges Collaboration (GCC) very early from when it started. Mainly as the next step after joining the Conversational Experiments by Flemming Funch. Following my desire to learn and master mainly two things: ‘Better Conversations’ and genuine generative ways to globally collaborate. The first has been a theme since 2006, the second felt more like still behind the horizon for me. No clue how to ever get there.

The Global Collaboration Group has been active for over a year now.

We have had endless conversations and surprisingly little real world results.

I wondered, how is this possible considering the gathering of so many mature and intelligent minds and talents..?

There was no lack of ambition, commitment or motivation, yet seemingly nothing has happened. And right here lies this almost indiscernible essential find. At least for me.
In order to be able to have genuine conversations and in order to even consider my use in the urgent societal turn we want to help happen, I firstly need to do the inner work. What I need to change first are these counterproductive behavioural patterns in me, before I can address any pattern elsewhere.

So inside me a huge silent revolution is taking place. And I can tell you, it is a total and deep disruption. Currently I feel scattered and very vulnerable, yet at the same time more whole. I do not fear the pain anymore. Although I do not know how to navigate the waves of old emotions as they become unfrozen. I have to submit until they are done with me. They no longer appear as demons and dragons I need to fight or escape from.
I now see them as long forgotten or forbidden aspects of my true self, that I could not  live in the culture I was born in. My first interpretations of being alive distilled to one huge block for my development. I understood one single message: “Not you, Harry.”

Many old beliefs still try to deny my birthright as a living being: To aspire to live life to the fullest, despite anything and anyone. Yet, thanks to the vast unconditional safe space that we (the steady GCC participants) have co-created together, I know I can heal these old wounds and prepare for the work outside myself.

One bonus has already realised itself: I am not alone anymore on this journey. I have very committed companions that will not give up until the Work is done.